negate a match in regex

[ikeon]

Hi All,
I have a script that I convert xml tags to html. like "<" I convert to
"&lt;" and so on.
after the conversion I need to capture the information inside the tag.
let take for example the string "&lt;abcd&gt;: which is equivalent to
"<abcd>".
I tried to capture the "abcd" which can be different from tag to tag
in the following way:

/\&lt\;([^\&\gt\;]*)/

like match "&lt;" and then match anything that is not "&gt;".
the thing is that it doesn't work on all tags for some reason and I
was wondering on a principal base if doing a [^somestring] suppose to
work ?

Thanks.

 

[Peter Makholm]

like match "&lt;" and then match anything that is not "&gt;".
the thing is that it doesn't work on all tags for some reason and I
was wondering on a principal base if doing a [^somestring] suppose to
work ?

No, using [^string] wont work as you're expecting. Just like
[string] doesn't match 'string' but only one of the letters s, t, r,
i, n, or g [^stirng] just matches one letter which isn't in 'string'.

What you need is a negative look-ahead (?!string). Read 'perldoc
perlre' for the explanation of it.

//Makholm

 

[John W. Krahn]

I have a script that I convert xml tags to html. like "<" I convert to
"&lt;" and so on.
after the conversion I need to capture the information inside the tag.
let take for example the string "&lt;abcd&gt;: which is equivalent to
"<abcd>".
I tried to capture the "abcd" which can be different from tag to tag
in the following way:

/\&lt\;([^\&\gt\;]*)/

You probably want something like:

/&lt;(.*?)&gt;/



John

 

[ikeon]

I have a script that I convert xml tags to html. like "<" I convert to
"&lt;" and so on.
after the conversion I need to capture the information inside the tag.
let take for example the string "&lt;abcd&gt;: which is equivalent to
"<abcd>".
I tried to capture the "abcd" which can be different from tag to tag
in the following way:

/\&lt\;([^\&\gt\;]*)/

You probably want something like:

/&lt;(.*?)&gt;/

John

The (?!string) didn't work for some reason but I have learned a lot
from "perldoc perlre"
The solution was /&lt;(.*?)&gt;/ which is the simple one. I tried it
with only (.*) but it was "greedy".

Thanks John and Peter for your quick respone.

 

[sln]

Hi All,
I have a script that I convert xml tags to html. like "<" I convert to
"&lt;" and so on.
after the conversion I need to capture the information inside the tag.
let take for example the string "&lt;abcd&gt;: which is equivalent to
"<abcd>".
I tried to capture the "abcd" which can be different from tag to tag
in the following way:

/\&lt\;([^\&\gt\;]*)/

like match "&lt;" and then match anything that is not "&gt;".
the thing is that it doesn't work on all tags for some reason and I
was wondering on a principal base if doing a [^somestring] suppose to
work ?

Thanks.

I'm still confused with your terminology 'xml tags to html'.
So be it.

How do you go from "<abcd>" to "&lt;abcd&gt;" without capturing
'abcd' ?


sln